The present invention relates to garage doors and especially to a garage door panel and a method of making a garage door panel having a barrier strip connecting the front and back metal sheets of the panel.
It has been common in the past to make overhead commercial and residential garage doors in a wide variety of materials, including wood or formed wood products, fiberglass and steel or aluminum doors. Metal doors utilize a relatively thin sheet or skin of metal on the front and back with a supporting and insulating material between the front and back. It has been common to fill a space between the front and back panels with a polymer foam, such as a polyurethane, from which may be a rigid foam which supports the metal skin and provides a substantial increase in the installation of each door panel. Typically, several panels, such as four elongated panels, are attached together with hinges so that the doors can be raised on tracks having rollers attached to the door panels for guiding and supporting a door when the door is lifted. Typically, the bottom panel has weatherstripping attached thereto for providing a seal between the bottom panel and the floor of the building. Many buildings require large overhead garage type doors for sealing off areas which may be heated or air conditioned and it is desirable to have insulated doors. In the case of metal doors, an insulating material such as wood or a foam polymer material is used in the doors between the front and back piece of sheet metal. However, the sheet metal will conduct heat through the metal skin from the front to the back and leakage can occur where the hinged panels come together when the door is closed. It becomes desirable to shape the edges of connecting panels so as to block the passage of air and to provide weatherstripping to seal between the panels.
The present invention is directed towards providing a better seal between panels while simultaneously providing a means to attach a front and back metal sheet in a spaced relationship to each other to thereby form a non-metallic barrier strip on the edge sides between the front and back metal sheets of each panel. This barrier strip, advantageously, in the present invention also provides a non-adhesive support for weatherstripping.